T. J. Hooker

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James Darren, William Shatner, and Heather Locklear.

T.J. Hooker was a weekly American police drama television program that premiered as a mid-season replacement in early 1982 on ABC-TV and ran on ABC primetime through summer 1985. The show starred William Shatner in the title role as the veteran police sergeant Thomas Jefferson Hooker along with Adrian Zmed as Officer Vince Romano, Heather Locklear as Officer Stacy Sheridan (season 2 onwards), and Richard Herd as Captain Dennis Sheridan as personnel in the fictional "LCPD" (that is, Lake City Police Department) academy precinct. At the end of its second season, James Darren became a regular cast member, as Officer Jim Corrigan.

Hooker was canceled by ABC in the summer of 1985, but the series survived when CBS picked up the show and produced new episodes that were longer than the normal 60-minute fare and were shown later at night (part of the CBS "Crime Time After Prime-Time" showcase during the late 80's/early 90's). Original shows finally were cancelled in 1987. Starting in 2005, the A&E Network re-broadcast the entire Hooker series, running one episode per weekday in the early hours of the morning. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the first two seasons on U.S. DVD on August 9, 2005.

Although the show was briefly very popular with viewers, it was derided by critics and real-life police officers for its hackneyed, formulaic approach to drama and its cliched portrayal of law enforcement. Some of the weekly cases (like the earlier series Adam-12) involved a relative or an old friend; the villains immediately announced their criminal nature from the moment they appeared on screen; and no opportunity to show some skin was missed (short-shorts or tight leotards on women, or Zmed bare-chested or wearing a tight T-shirt were frequent fare). The police team's adversaries included Latino street gangs, snipers, Bible-preaching psychos, stalkers (before the term was coined), medical bone-mallet-toting cross-dressers, baby-faced arsonists, and vengeful ex-cops. There were no pretensions of high-quality drama in this series, as was typical with an Aaron Spelling-produced cop show. Hooker frequently made it a point to criminals that he carried a .357 Magnum instead of the standard issue .38 Special. Hooker wanted to reinforce his hardline stand against crime thus carried a weapon that met that standard. In later episodes, Hooker and Romano would go undercover, handling cases in plain clothes and an unmarked police car.

Hooker and Romano's radio call sign was "4 Adam 30", and radio calls were very similar to those of Los Angeles Police Department, using three bursts of a 900-hz tone, using LAPD-type radio codes, and the officers acknolwedging with roger. The series itself was produced in Los Angeles, and the call sign "4 Adam 30" denoted a two-officer unit based in the Hollenbeck division of LAPD, with 30 as a supervisor unit.

Guest stars included Leonard Nimoy (who also directed an episode), Sharon Stone, and Tori Spelling.

Incidentally, if the LCPD Headquarters/Academy looks familiar, it should: it's the American Film Institute's Motion-Picture Library in Los Angeles.